By Paul Casey Gotham
****Remember, try this without research. Release your inner James Joyce and show us your stream of consciousness as you try to decipher the answer.
Once was a time when La Salle basketball carried some clout. The Explorers won the title once. I wasn’t on that team. I came a few decades later. When I left college, I was third all-time in points scored. Yeah, I scored more than 3,000 points and grabbed more than 1,300 rebounds. Can anybody else claim that? I scored 37 points in one game at the Dean Dome. Not many visiting players can say they did that. You probably don’t know who I am, but I was AP Player-of-the-Year. I won the Wooden, I was Philly 5 POY and I won the Naismith. I was taken seventh overall in the N.B.A. draft. I switched coasts and played seven seasons for one team averaging 15 points and more than 7 rebounds. We only got to the playoffs once in my career.
Who am I?
With Wally away this week, you could have given us a little easier Who Am I.
Who knows? Maybe this one is a little easier, but I have no clue.
I meant to add a 😉
I still have no clue.
Wait, Wally is on hiatus and this is what Casey tosses out for a bone? Then I am never going to get one of these. But just in case there is an outside chance I could win, I’ll vote for Meadowlark Lemon.
I’m not good with names. LaSalle did in fact win a championship, and I’m 99% sure it was either 1954 or 1955 (remember reading it in a program at a Temple game). So if this guy is a “few” decades later, we’re looking at someone in the 1980s. “Switching coasts” – I’ll take that literally. He played for either the Clippers, Lakers, Warriors, Blazers or Sonics. Getting to the playoffs once eliminates the Lakers and I’ll gues and say the Blazers. So he played for either the Clips, Sonics or Warriors.
I can get that far, but I have NO CLUE on names.
One name just came to me. When I went to Penn State, there were all these guys from Philly who were hot on Lionel Simmons. But, that would mean he played college in the late ’80s, so that could fit the description.
I’ll guess Lionel Simmons, but it could be Meadowlark Lemon. 😉
Tom Gola led LaSalle to that 1950s championship, but I have no idea who was in the 80s that would have won all those awards. the name Lionel Simmons certainly rings a bell, but other than being a “flash-in-the-pan” I would not have thought of him as being so lauded a player. Nevertheless, I am thinking Chas may have nailed it. Sorry I can’t be more help – or on time even!
OUTSTANDING! Lionel Simmons is the answer. Chas – great job conjuring up conversations from the Penn State days.
Well there goes my moment in the sun.
Thanks Casey. I had zero knowledge of Simmons’s NBA days. It looks like he played for Sacramento. Either Rey forgot to name them as one of the possibilities or he literally meant literally with regard to the “switched coasts” part of the clue. Sacramento isn’t on the coast, but it’s in a state that’s on the coast.
By that definition, Portland is not on the coast either, although what about Seattle and Golden State. Seattle’s on Puget Sound, which is connected to the Pacific. Likewise with Oakland and San Francisco Bay.
OK, I’ll stop now.